Appeasement of Minorities is a Myth

Saturday 5 August 2017

by Ram Puniyani

The turmoil in Kashmir has worsened since the encounter of Burhan Wani last year (2016). The ceaseless protests, the handling of protests leading to deaths and blinding of many is very disturbing. To cap this negative development the attack on Amaranth pilgrims has added salt to the wounds of the nation. (July 2017)

Tragedy struck when one of the buses was attacked. The bus driver, Salim, in a brave gesture, kept driving despite being wounded, and that prevented a wholesale massacre.

The Amarnath yatra is among the most pious of pilgrimages undertaken by scores of Hindus. In Amarnath there is an ice Shiva Linga located in a cave deep in the valley. This was discovered by a Muslim shepherd, way back in the 1850s, and since then it is a regular pilgrimage-stop for devotees. The yatra is managed mostly by Muslims on the way and reflects the deep imprint of India’s syncretic culture.

It is also a manifestation of Kashmiriyat, the culture of Kashmir, which is a synthesis of Buddhism, Vedant and Sufi tradition. Despite the rising militancy in Kashmir, the yatra has mostly been going on, though under heavy security cover. There are instances earlier also when the yatra was attacked in 2001, 2002 and in 2003. Incidentally those were also the years when the NDA was ruling. What the corre-lation is between the muscular nationalism practised by the BJP-led NDA and such acts is a matter of conjecture.

While there is communalisation of the Kashmir issue by the Pakistan-inspired mili-tants and Al-Qaeda type elements who have infiltrated into the area, by and large the deep syncretism of the area has prevailed and the local Muslim population has been of great help to the tourists (yatris) in their hours of crisis, in matters of supply of food when the yatris have got trapped due to natural calamities. Kashmir and the nation condemned the attack in one voice. The nation was pained to no end. The Prime Minister, who takes a long time to speak or tweet when a Pahlu Khan or a Juniad is mob-lynched, was prompt with a series of tweets in condemning, rightly, the Amarnath incident.

The other part of this was the Hindu nationalists who have been on the job to run down and humiliate the liberal and democratic voices in the country. The BJP spokesperson, G.V.L. Narasimha Rao, carrying on with his usual mocking at the democratic liberal elements, tweeted: "On Amarnath killings, is Not In My Name gang protesting or are protests only for Akhlaqs, Junaids, Pehlu Khans and Not4Lord Shiva devotees?"

This was in the aftermath of the massive turn-out on Jantar Mantar after the killing of Junaid in the train. The general impression being spread is that liberal activists-thinkers protest only after the atrocities against Muslims. This started being propagated more so after the ‘award wapsi’ (returning honours) following the mass lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq. As such if we see, even the award wapsi occurred once there was a qualitative change in the persecution of minorities with the coming to power of the Modi Sarkar. Akhlaq’s lynching was shocking. Similarly Junaid’s murder in a train also was an event where the basic foundations of democratic liberties got shaken.

The spontaneous mass protests after Junaid’s murder occurred in different cities of the country and did register the resentment all around. As a matter of fact the ‘Not In My Name’ protest picked up and on similar lines thousands collected to grieve the death of Amarnath pilgrims. So what does the propaganda by BJP spokespersons aim to achieve?

Currently this tribe wants to spread the impression that the Hindu majority is suffering; and is being persecuted while the Muslims are being appeased-pampered in this country. Hindu nationalist politics draws strength from the propaganda first against Muslims and then partly against Christians. Currently it wants to defame all those who defend the human rights of minorities. That’s the reason that protests of this kind have occurred more often and have drawn more attention. The idea behind this criticism of liberal democratic elements is to muzzle the voice of protests, so that the BJP-type politics, based on intolerance of liberal values and violation of minority rights, has an easy go in society. Its main plank so far has been that minorities have been appeased and now it is entering the next stage where the majority Hindu community is supposed to be suffering discrimination. This is a very shrewd move and without a shred of truth.

While their propaganda did sink into the social understanding, the truth is far from that. In our country, the economic condition of Muslims is well reflected in the Sachar Committee report, how over the last seven decades their condition has been deteriorating abysmally. In matters of security and being victims of violence, over 80 per cent of violence- victims are Muslims, while they constitute 14.1 per cent in the population as per the 2011 Census. In most of the acts of terrorist violence also, it is the Muslim youth who have been arrested and most of them have had to be released for the lack of any evidence. Their political representation is falling continuously as reflected in the number of Muslim Lok Sabha MPs.

The perception being created about the threat to the majority community is the bedrock of the communal campagin and a clever political move to further strengthen the polarising politics of the principal party in power at the Centre.